The mainstream U.S. media bristles with hostility toward Russia – fueling a New McCarthyism – but the press finds no space for grassroots American gestures of peace, writes ex-U.S. intelligence analyst Elizabeth Murray.
By Elizabeth Murray
On a sunny afternoon in June 2016, a group of swimsuit-clad men and women raced into the warm waters of the Crimean Black Sea and swam exuberantly toward the horizon, surfacing occasionally to exchange smiles and laughs. They stroked and kicked farther out into the surf before turning around and heading back in toward the Yalta coastline. A few of the swimmers lingered in the inviting waters, conversing haltingly or gesturing to bridge the language barrier that seemed, in the end, to be overcome by sheer good will. This was the first annual Russian-American “Swim for Peace.”
Retired U.S. Deputy National Intelligence Officer Elizabeth Murray,
with a Russian Veteran, Ishuk, at a ‘Swim for Peace’ event in the Black Sea of Crimea
The event brought together members of a U.S. peace delegation sponsored by the Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI) and Soviet-era Russian World War II veterans. Both groups had gathered around a conference table on the previous day; the Americans heard the WWII vets speak fondly of the period when Russia (the then-Soviet Union) and the U.S. were united as allies against fascism; both sides shared the conviction that a peaceful, productive relationship between both countries could and should exist again.
Before the meeting concluded, the Americans invited the Russian vets to join them in the waters of the Black Sea for a “Swim for Peace.” But when the U.S. side first proposed the idea, it wasn’t clear whether the solemn and dignified Soviet-era officers — some of whom seemed unapproachable in their stiff military uniforms complete with medals, ribbons and other war regalia — would take the invitation to heart.
Nevertheless, on the following afternoon, the war vets turned out in their swimming trunks, enthusiastically plunging into the waves with their U.S. counterparts in a demonstration of true “swimsuit diplomacy.” They were soon joined by other citizens of Yalta — including one of the town’s officials — all of whom seemed to revel in the spirit of goodwill that permeated the event.
Meanwhile, cameras rolled, and the “Swim for Peace” aired on Russian television. However, in the days following the event, there was no pickup of the event seen in U.S. or Western media.
Harsh Sanctions
Despite the existence of punitive U.S. and European Union sanctions on Crimea that have crippled the local tourism industry and harmed local businesses – for example, the Crimean resort town of Yalta normally bustles with European cruise ships in summer, but there were none to be seen last year because of U.S.-imposed travel sanctions – Yalta showed warm hospitality to the American guests: When the swimmers reached shore, they were ushered to an outdoor reception featuring platters of fresh fruit all grown locally in the Crimea including raspberries, strawberries and other delicacies — and glasses were raised to peaceful U.S.-Russia ties with wine made from locally cultivated grapes.
Russian war veteran, Medved, in his military uniform
The “Swim for Peace” at Yalta — although a small, localized event — built bridges of friendship and peace between Americans and Russians at a time of heightened tensions that were sparked by the 2014 U.S.-sponsored coup in Ukraine; shaken by the instability engendered by the violent events that transpired in Kiev, Crimeans voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to reunite with Russia (Crimea had been part of Russia until 1957, when then-Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev “gifted” the peninsula to Ukraine.)
Despite the U.S. government’s sanctions regimen that has harmed many productive Russian-American exchange programs at the cultural, social, political and diplomatic levels, ordinary Russian people have clearly and strongly expressed the desire to live in peaceful coexistence with the United States — a sentiment that was expressed to the U.S. delegation not only in the Crimea, but in other regions of Russia, as documented by CCI delegation member and former U.S. diplomat Ann Wright.
In gamely joining U.S. citizens in a “Swim for Peace,” the citizens of Yalta demonstrated a level of goodwill and friendship that could be the basis for developing a strong grassroots movement for peace between Russian and U.S. citizens.
Russian war veteran, Medved, at the “Swim for Peace,” shaking hands.
It is my sincere hope that the “Swim for Peace” becomes an annual tradition between Russians and Americans — not only in Yalta, but in other Russian and U.S. seaside towns that are willing to welcome delegations of Russians and Americans who believe in the possibility of peace between our two peoples and nations. Small gestures of goodwill can yield lasting results.
On April 22, 2017, the city of Yalta unveiled a bust of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the city’s Franklin Roosevelt Street to mark the late U.S. President’s historic role in forging postwar peace at the 1945 Yalta conference. Local officials said they hoped the gesture would “help to improve relations between Russia and the United States.”
That Yalta — which suffers disproportionately from the impact of U.S. sanctions against Russia — has chosen to honor a former U.S. president at a time of stress and tension between Russia and the United States — and which engaged a visiting U.S. delegation in a “Swim for Peace” — should give U.S. citizens pause in the U.S. media’s unrelenting hostility toward Russia.
Has the monument honoring FDR at Yalta and the “Swim for Peace” been reported in U.S. mainstream media? If not, why not? Would a U.S. city ever consider making a similar reciprocal gesture to Russian citizens or a Russian leader?
If Americans could learn about goodwill gestures by Russian people who believe in the possibility of peaceful coexistence, they might be less likely to allow their government to launch a war that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons.
[Photos from http://www.ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/2016/07/for-russians-with-love/]
Elizabeth Murray served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence Council before retiring after a 27-year career in the U.S. government – 20 of those years as an editor and media analyst in the Open Source Center (OSC). She is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Russia and USA united to fight Canadian dairy war.
I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night
Soldiers passing by
Listening to the wind of change
The world is closing in
Did you ever think
That we could be so close, like brothers
The future’s in the air
I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change
Take me to the magic of the moment
“Wind of Change” is a power ballad by the German rock band Scorpions, recorded for their eleventh studio album, Crazy World (1990).
You can get a band and have a wave of change operation.
Go Navy!
Have you heard about the beautiful 9/11 memorial the Russians gave us? Of course not. No press coverage and it was moved to some backwater of New Jersey where nobody would see it.
You won’t hear these nice stories about our common humanity because they are not in the interest of US foreign policy. Wall St. and the military industrial complex want the US to be the global hegemon, dictating our terms to the rest of the world. We will always need an external enemy to scare the public into aquiescence.
Russia is not the enemy. The oligarchs that run the United States are.
Trump lost a magnificent chance:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/05/russia-syrian-safe-zones-plan-takes-effect-midnight-170505185444598.html
Well said. We live in the 21st century but resolve our problems by resorting to violence, which is barbaric. We can achieve many things for the good of humanity when we are united and non violent than by violence and enmity. We sojourn this world for a short, uncertain time, and carry only our deeds (good & bad), when we leave. Why not make it a peaceful and joyful experience – heaven on earth and win-win for all!. SJ
Dear USA, Please stop trying to dominate the world, and let Koreans and all others find their way to peace. You could be such a help to world peace if you would stop bullying everyone.
Wonderful reportage!
I was in Russia two years ago and was equally impressed by the good will and good nature of St Petersburg inhabitants.
Thank you.
Unfortunately, there will be no peace, the attacks on foreign nations will not cease, the invasions and occupations of foreign nations will go on until the US mainland experiences war on it´s home territory. After all of the major cities in the US are flattened by war, after many millions die only then will the US public, like those in Japan and Germany wake up to the realization of what war really is. Only then , when a John McCain, Lindsay Graham and or Hillary Clinton be met by an overwhelming publlic rejection of their nihilistic views. Some nations have to have their faces litterally ground into the blood, guts and dismembered bodies to come to their sences and reject war. That principle nation that needs that experience is the United States of America.
So long as wars are, as they are in the USA, only fought on television, or in far off lands and the military body count hidden from the general population, Or are fought with unmanned drones from the luxury of a military base in the Nevada desert. Americans will always love war. War is their culture. War is their economy. War myths as are perpetuated in movies and the MSM are their rellgion. All of this is only possible to maintain so long as new York, SanFrancisco, Atlanta, Chigago etc. do not look like Berlin, St. Petersburg, Allepo, or Mosul after they were flattened in the WW11 and the present version of America spreading democracy.. American will never believe just how horrific war is until they have their faces litterally rubbed into it.
Today’s John Batchelor/Stephen Cohen podcast in passing enumerates the many well-documented government-based sabotage of attempts at detente … it’s rather breathtaking and depressing (multiple welltimes to subvert presidential initiatives, doubtful oopsies) going back decades, in both (d) and (r) administrations … and people (usually Clintonite democrats, naturally) scoff at the idea of a “deep state”
https://audioboom.com/posts/5880431-trump-and-putin-chat-detente-what-can-go-wrong-and-why-stephen-f-cohen-nyu-princeton-eastwestaccord-com?t=0
Superb, heartening essay.
Meanwhile, cameras rolled, and the “Swim for Peace” aired on Russian television. However, in the days following the event, there was no pickup of the event seen in U.S. or Western media.
SO so obvious….
The fact that, in Russia, Putin is very moderate…he has done his level best to keep the lid on a large segment of the Russian government that wants to have a war with USA as bad as USA wants to have a war with them…There are major elections coming up in Russia…Putin has a very high favorability rating with russian voters, but it is possible to get a MUCH WORSE leader than Putin…if we dont take advantage of negotiating with Vladimir, there may be no negotiating at all in the future…
negotiate with Putin or have a cruise missile duel with the Old School Oligarchs whats it gonna be?
It seems the “Russia is ant-gay” is the favored meme now for many Russia bashers. They seem to discount the violent anti-gay tradition in the US. This is just another stick to beat Russia with and justify war. Really?! You want to risk annihilation for that?!
They did pretty much exactly the same thing with homosexuality in Cuba… it’s evergreen … which is not to say it’s not.worth.mentioning, but again and again, it’s the suggestion that Putin and the central government are “responsible” … what’s irritating is that Chechnya is a largely Muslim, somewhat autonomous region towards which — iirc — the central government treads carefully …
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/20/opinion/putins-disunited-nation.html?_r=0
This is a matter of trying to bait Putin to intervene in Chechnya, and likely stir up a hornet’s nest there ….
“Russia, invaded in the nineteenth century by France and in the twentieth by Germany reportedly losing some 20 million people in the latter war. The USSR’s army occupied an estimated seventy percent of the German army saving tens of thousands of American lives, and yet we give Russia the back of our hand.” This is very true. Stalin was a resourceful ally against Hitler…but only after Hitler betrayed Stalin and attacked the USSR. Before that, the Nazis and Soviets were allies. Don’t forget the Soviet contribution to the Allied victory in WWII…and don’t pretend the Soviets were our allies for any other reason than their own survival. Consider the difference between the American-, British- and French-occupied quarters of Germany and the Russian-occupied quarter. Would you have preferred to live in East Germany, or West Germany?
“the rulers of Russia want peace” With the US, perhaps, but they would use that “peace” to re-annex all of the territory of the former Soviet Union. That is not true peace, that is Russian imperialism. They’d be overjoyed if we said “yeah, go take over all of your neighbors, we won’t do anything about it.” And we would have “peace”… but all those conquered peoples would have anything but peace.
“In Afghanistan and in Syria, Russia intervened at the request of the embattled local government” The United States frequently claims that its aggression is at the behest of its victims. Do you believe it when the US says it? If not, why would you believe it when Russia says it?
It is a mistake to believe that just because the US government does terrible things, that all those who oppose it are good. The governments of every country do terrible things. The governments of the United States and Russia both do brutal and oppressive things to their own people, and both start utterly unnecessary and counterproductive wars. But US citizens have many freedoms that Russian citizens do not. The Russian government is even more corrupt, even more undemocratic, even more homophobic, even more oppressive than the United States government. And if you look at the individual republics, for example, Chechnya, it gets worse, with an official state policy that gay Chechens do not even exist. Should our common cause with good-hearted Russian people fool us into believing we have common cause with Vladimir Putin?
It is easy to want peace with Russia. We should, absolutely work for peace with all nations. But it is hard to see how we can have peace with Russia when Russia wants war.
I do not agree with America’s warmongering. But I do not believe it makes sense to pretend that the world would be a happy and peaceful place without it. There are many, many would-be emperors in the world, and only some of them are American.
Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.
Peace.
Sorry but my brain did fall out reading that propaganda piece you just published. The peace loving US mega military and the warlike Russian government? That stuff you are smoking is way too strong, back off before you go completely nuts. When your head clears up a bit, maybe someone could talk some reality to you….
We are your friends, no need to get violent.
Russia was invaded by USA, UK and France after Bolshivek revolution, the Reds won. Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had non-agression pact not an alliance. Stalin was extremely fearful of Hitler. Russia does not indicate any imperial aspirations. Its protection of Ukraine Russians form the Nazi tainted Keiv government is negligible compare to the USA’s continous multiple invasions and interventions. Almost impossible to be more corrupt than USA government.
“In Afghanistan and in Syria, Russia intervened at the request of the embattled local government” The United States frequently claims that its aggression is at the behest of its victims. Do you believe it when the US says it? If not, why would you believe it when Russia says it? ”
Do you not realize how ridiculous that sounds given the current situation in Syria ? You don’t have to believe what Russia says , you can simply listen to what the “embattled local government” , Syria , says. Assad has stated that Russia is in Syria at their request , for which they are grateful. On the other hand , he considers the forces of the just-trying-to-be-helpful U.S.-led coalition to be invaders , and wants them all to just get out of Syria , along with their terrorist proxies.
Because their help was requested , what Russia is doing is honorable , even if selfish interests motivate them to some degree. What the U.S. is doing is dishonorable , because only selfish interests motivate them. Always.
Your comments include a lot of good points, but the following is nonsense:
“It is easy to want peace with Russia. We should, absolutely work for peace with all nations. But it is hard to see how we can have peace with Russia when Russia wants war.”
Whatever evil motivations you attribute to Russia, one is not to commit suicide. Looking at relative spending on defense, even Britain spends more that Russia. We spend seven or eight times as much.
It is the United States who is pushing Russia and whatever Russia’s character, they are anxious for détente because of the consequences of war.
I suggest you review the origins of the Syrian conflict
https://gowans.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/the-revolutionary-distemper-in-syria-that-wasnt/
The American formula was to foment a coup (often military) which would then request American assistance while it consolidated power … in the last decade, overt (rather than covert) regimen change has notably left the beneficiaries of our “largesse” as failed states …
Assad had been fighting this faux (proxy) civil war for several years, hobbled also by economic sanctions and was ‘on the ropes’ when Russia came to its quite limited assistance.
One of the primary functions of any state is its own survival, protection of its borders, territories, etc, including the defense of its people from invaders. Even with massive outside support of all kinds, “the rebels” in Syria gains peaked several years ago after which they splintered (the Salafists won decisively) and “they” have never recovered either the momentum or their lost legitimacy as any credible force of liberation from the Assad regime (be it ever so “brutal”, those who seek to replace it may well be worse)
https://gowans.wordpress.com/2017/04/30/the-real-defenders-of-democracy-syria-and-the-struggle-against-the-international-despotism-of-wall-street/
Let’s be friends means nothing to the psychopathic rulers of Amerika. Maybe a better opportunity to stab someone in the back – which is what we did to Russia after they won WWII.
It’s very simple: the people of both countries want peace, the rulers of Amerika want war, the rulers of Russia want peace. If the people of the USA want peace, then they must remove the present oligarchs from power, and ignore the avalanche of propaganda their media machines spew forth. Will that happen? I doubt it, but the events of our collapsing industrial civilization will stop their mad schemes, one way or another….
The CSNY song, “Teach your children” has been running through my head this morning (not a favorite, a bit too sweet for my tastes). It feels to me as if we somehow failed to teach “the next generation” that “peace is possible”, that “there is no way to peace, rather peace is the way”, even the golden rule has somehow been lost.
Atheist, raised by atheist, I nonetheless find myself wondering where the religious leaders have gone, the religious-secular coalitions. I recall being disappointed when the Vietnam era antiwar movement seemed to quickly dissipate when the draft was ended, and the lessons wrt the immorality of American imperialism seemed to be quickly forgotten (not only is it immoral, involves violations of international war, but it’s outcomes are most often disasters … each successive “new Vietnam” never seems to phase, much less stop “them” … ). Vietnam “fell” to the communists and was allowed to find it’s path forward … 16 years after invading Afghanistan, the Taliban are endlessly “resurgent” and now allegedly joined by “ISIS” (which may or may not be a generational response by younger rebels to 16 years of fighting the invaders), regardless another “waist deep in big muddy” with not-even-casualty counts to tell us “how we’re doing” … (killing all unidentified male age 14-65 seems to me to be an almost genocidal goal) …
In Afghanistan and in Syria, Russia intervened at the request of the embattled local government (declared American enemy state) not to effect “regime change” and impose a client state (they were already cooperating allies) … there is a substantive qualitative difference and morality.
I wonder if the impending famine in Yemen will move Americans to tears … I’m doubtful.
Susan, the first paragraph of your post is right on. The loss of true morality and the hardening of hearts are crucial factors underlying our failure as a species. Not everyone is so afflicted, but those at the top seem specially prone to this spiritual sickness. Your remarks later tell me you are in the process of distinguishing religion from spirituality, and a love of Truth by whatever name.
not really, during the Red Scare of my childhood, various Christian and Jewish groups were in the forefront of many causes, largely enjoying some religious immunity to red-baiting … this religious presence continued until — in my sphere — until Gulf War and Bosnia where they seemed absent and/or were silenced by their parishioners (in a local case, I discovered a co-worker led the tumultuous charge, demanding that her local Methodist church stop with the anti-warmongering).
Religions often claim to be “of peace” and brotherhood and all-good-things … I think the world (and American society) could benefit from a reinstatement of such idealism … but I fear everyone believes they will considered unworldly and unserious.
It feels to me as if we somehow failed to teach “the next generation” that “peace is possible”, that “there is no way to peace, rather peace is the way”, even the golden rule has somehow been lost.
One of the problems of education through the years, whether in schools or other educational institutions or via the various media, or even at home, has been the constant stream of lies fed to children. I became a teenager at the end of the Second World War when I was taught that when we faced enemies war was the solution and our ways were the ways of the good guys. Fortunately, some of this indoctrination was offset by some lessons learned from the Nuremberg Trials, but war remained preeminent. It took much too long to unlearn this lesson and to learn that our leaders were not always the good guys. This part of my history helps to explain why I am so appreciative of Consortium News and other websites like it.
If we are to resist the barbarians and charlatans now running the United States and the satraps serving the American empire we need to rise to the challenge and build a movement to create a better world or, at least, one that is less awful than what we now have.
I didn’t mean that literally or that the younger generation were somehow “poor learners” … Americans seem to be caught up in a joyless stressful rat-race that makes the 1950’s keeping up with the Jones’ rat race look tame … I notice that the golden rule had gotten “lost” sometime in the years before 2005. Simple sacchrine traditionals like “It’s a small world after all” or “I’d like to teach then world to sing” seemed rather childish, even sad and pathetic to our endlessly vigilant, endlessly exhausted mindset of 10 years ago … I sort of assumed we’d eventually demonstrate some resilience and joie de vive … it’s very sobering to realizing that those 20 and under have never known much “normalcy” (the eldest having been 5 year old on 09/11) …
I’ve noticed that some very basic concepts of psychology and sociology have been lost (never taught v. never learned), cross-cultural curiosity, anthropology, comparative relgion, folklore and folk tales and music … those over-reacting “self-preservation” blinders have narrowed our gaze for a long time now …
Thanks for your comment. I remember coming to parents house dinner one weekend and my dad and I had long and interesting conversation. He asked me if we the protesters thought we had changed the world and after a drink great scotch I said No. I thought they would just go underground and work on new plan that wouldn’t allow that happen. He shook head said, Yep. Sadly the mass went to save everything on the planet and that’s not bad work but if we didn’t save the human race then there won’t be anything left on the little blue sphere hurling through space This long but worth time the neo-conns thought long and hard on how to control the masses better next time and they have followed it a T.
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
This follows what Robert Parry wrote the other day on media.
http://natyliesbaldwin.com/2017/04/its-time-to-talk-about-the-media/
Thanks Elizabeth Murray, I don’t watch media but the chance of Amerikan corp. media having anything nice to say about Russia are 0.
It was really nice to read this comment today, and a good excuse to listen to a good (although yes, almost too sweet) song I hadn’t heard for a while. On a side note, you should try Milk Carton Kids, which I only discovered recently, who have a similar kind of harmonious sound.
I wonder about many of the same things, although you’ve summarized so much so well. My daughter is 12 now and I worry sometimes the things I read her and tell her are too depressing and hard for a kid her age, but I also worry that if I don’t she will lose the chance to have any real perspective of the world while preserving her sense of morality and humanity. I found my 20s very hard coming to terms with how naive I was and how much of reality I blocked out to justify my lifestyle. It would have been quite easy to skip that realisation and just carry on like everyone else, but I’m pretty sure I would have lost a big part of myself.
” Local officials said they hoped the gesture would “help to improve relations between Russia and the United States.””
That made me laugh. I wouldn’t be surprised if FDR is the most hated president by contemporary US politicians. At least the Crimeans are smart enough to honor the man that might have been the best president the US ever had. He instituted more policies that helped to raise the standard of living of more proles than most other presidents.
And Russia shouldn’t forget that D-day didn’t happen until it was very clear that the Red Army was going to win the war.
“If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. Neither of them thinks anything of their pledged word.” Harry Truman
The New York Times (24 June 1941)
If Americans could learn about goodwill gestures by Russian people who believe in the possibility of peaceful coexistence, they might be less likely to allow their government to launch a war that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons.
The MSM media supporting the barbarians in charge of foreign policy are more devoted to throwing stones at other people from their glass houses.
Everyone seems to be cheering on this end-days cage-match hypercompetitive mentality … as if it were only a few Christians (worthy of our concern) regularly being thrown to very-expensive high-tech lions as collateral damage.
Elizabeth Murray’s article breaks your heart. Russia, invaded in the nineteenth century by France and in the twentieth by Germany reportedly losing some 20 million people in the latter war. The USSR’s army occupied an estimated seventy percent of the German army saving tens of thousands of American lives, and yet we give Russia the back of our hand. The powerful, the few, who decide our fate, have decided that Russia’s refusal to bow done cannot be allowed to stand, and refuse to open the doors to better relations. Claiming we have a free media in the face of this insanity and its refusal to question our aggression is as hypocritical as you can get.
I am reading John Steinbeck’s “A Russian Journal” and recommend it as salient today. Part of the reason for the trip was constant hostile US news. What the heck is going on? John wondered and went to find out.
Many years ago, during the Vietnam war era, I was a graduate student of socioeconomics at the University of California at Santa Barbara. This was a time before economics had become indoctrination and training rather than education. Russian history, communism and economic development were among the central topics. It is good to be reading about this same era from John Steinbeck, he would have fit in my youthful studies as a great professor.
Today, reading about the “Swim for Peace that aired on Russian television but did not appear in U.S. or Western media, I wonder if the Russians are lucky enough to live in a country that does not brain wash the people with hatred and lust to wage wars killing mostly innocent civilians.
Mr. Connelly, did you find the book in the library or did you purchase it?
You have to excuse me because I am retarded.
“I wonder if the Russians are lucky enough to live in a country that does not brain wash the people with hatred and lust to wage wars killing mostly innocent civilians.”
No.